Thursday, 16 October 2014

New Experiences

Just Claiming My Territory

Sister Montesinos and I outside of our apartment building

Dearest Family!

How are
you all? Hope you're doing splendid :) Is it cold there? I've had the
longest Summer this year- from January to now it's still quite warm, so
for one of the first times in my life I think I'm ready for Winter!
Anyway, this week was filled with a lot of new experiences for me! So my
companion and I aren't super pumped about going tracting and it's
generally a 'last-resort' type of thing, but we went this last week, and
got quite a few door slams, but finally I mustered up the courage to do
the initial greeting at the door (instead of my companion doing the
talking) and so I did it all in Polish and all by myself! Mind you, we
got scoffed at, rolled-eyes and a slammed door before I was even able to
say "...Latter-day Saints" but hey, I did it myself! It gets hard
sometimes having to deal with the rejection, but I've been carrying
around a big picture of Jesus Christ in my Ksiega Mormona (Book of
Mormon) and my companion always reminds me that He's with us always as
long as we are doing his work and trying our best. I love all the time
that we get for spiritual studies in the morning, because it means I get
to learn more about what Jesus Christ is like and what His disciples
are like, and that consequently has been helping me a lot with loving
people and seeing their worth the way that He does.

This
week I also had a pretty good experience with speaking to a man sitting
on a park bench. I've been praying so hard for courage these past few
weeks, and God has definitely been helping me out. So I went and made
the initial contact, I explained who we were and then he said "Please
sit down" (in Polish). I was so taken aback at the invitation I almost
didn't believe I had heard him correctly! We were able to teach a short
lesson and hopefully give this man hope about having purpose in life (he
said he didn't believe in God and had accepted the fact that his life
doesn't have a purpose). While I didn't understand much of what he
saying, I was able to bear simple testimony about how I know that God
exists and has a purpose for me, and knows everyone on the Earth
individually and loves them. My companion did a really great job of
teaching some other basic restored truths of the gospel, and even though
we probably won't see that man again, I have hope that he was left with
a better understanding of his own great worth, and I'm glad that the
Lord let me be led to that encounter.

Yesterday at church
was really great. My listening skills are slowly picking up, which is
helping me build more meaningful relationships with the members of the
ward. It's also giving me more courage to just speak for the sake of
trying, because I know that's how I'm going to learn best.

The
other day, the Elders and us went to a park and set up a 'free table',
where we have DVDs, pamphlets and Ksiega Mormonas free for people to
take. One man came up to our table and said he's heard about us before
when he was in the States, and he satyed in a Marriot Hotel and got a
Book of Mormon there. We were like great, what do you know about the
church? He said he knows everything already but wished us good luck and
was quite friendly. He walked away and the Elder and I were a little sad
because one of our least favourite responses as missionaries, is "I
know everything already". It's such a shame to hear that, because we
know that really, if they knew everything already, they would give our
message a chance, pray about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, read
Moroni's promise about knowing the truth of the Book of Mormon, and find
out for themselves about why our message truly is so important. It's
also a principle that we as members should always remember- we never know
everything. I seriously love reading the scriptures (I've been reading a
lot from the New Testament lately) because every time I read through, I
learn something different, and I feel closer to Christ. It's super
important to remember that Christ's gospel as told by Himself, includes
the final principle of enduring to the end. We need to constantly
improve and learn, and none of us can ever reach a limit of knowledge or
spiritual understanding on this earth. Well back to the park, a few
minutes later, the same man came back to us at the table. He was curious
about why we were in Poland and asked us if we have Polish backgrounds.
He was super surprised when we said that we didn't, and he seemed a
little confused as to why we would be doing missionary work in Poland.
(I've noticed that we get this question quite a bit). Well it's a good
opportunity to bear testimony, and I hope that this man could feel of
our sincerity when we told him that we truly believe that Christ's true
church has been restored with His authority on the earth.

I
love being a missionary in Poland, and I truly wouldn't be out here
telling people the things I do, if I wasn't 100% sure of it. I know more
than anything, that the things we teach honestly matter more than any
material thing in this world. "Men are that they might have joy". I love life, and I love you all so much I can't explain :)

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About Me

I love travelling and meeting new people and having lots of fun. I served a mission in Poland for a year and a half for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 2014-2015. I lived in Germany as a nanny in 2013. I like Tim-Tam slamming and riding my pet kangaroo around the backyard.